What Makes a Great Leader?

TRANSCRIPT

Question: What makes a great leader?

Rosabeth Moss Kanter: I'm impressed by the Nobel laureate from Africa whose projects was planting trees and getting other women in the village to plant trees. That's very powerful. It starts with a small act, but it starts with finding what strength you have and what you can do. So my highest values have to do with unlocking the potential in people. I know that sounds a little, but it's still a good thing to do! And it could be, if we're lucky, the 21st century mode. We've been through several decades of cynicism where hard numbers drove out other kinds of thinking … where we had a little bit of greed in the United States because, well, people could. There was money to be made. And I'm hoping that we'll enter an era of hope.

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